Amid continuing protests over the creation of a separate Telangana state, Union ministers from the Seema-Andhra region met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi and expressed the "sense of deprivation" prevailing in Andhra and Rayalseema regions.
The fund would be on the lines of Member of Parliament Local Area Development fund.
Praja Rajyam Party chief Chiranjeevi today strongly refuted reports that his party has merged with Congress, saying it was only a "media creation".
Elections will be held on June 10 to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states falling vacant due to the retirement of members on different dates between June and August, the Election Commission said on Thursday.
For the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh the ongoing crisis in Telangana will not end with granting statehood. The decision on making Hyderabad a common capital or Union Territory will be a crucial one if it wants to retain power in the state, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
Jaganmohan Reddy's resignation from the Congress has had Andhra Pradesh buzzing. Ambatti Ram Babu, one of his closest aides, who has been at logger heads with the Congress for quite sometime, says that the resignation was prompted due to a 'betrayal by the Congress'.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
In acute embarrassment to the Congress party and Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, supporters of rebel leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy caused the defeat of a Congress candidate in the elections to the legislative council.
The YSR Congress is all set to wrest power in Andhra Pradesh, with the party on course to secure a landslide win, leaving the ruling Telugu Desam Party way behind in the assembly elections.
United Muslim Action Committee, an umbrella of more than a dozen Muslim organisations of Andhra Pradesh, on Wednesday declared an all-out war against ruling Congress party, specially Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
The Congress wants to reinforce the tax more powerfully now after its four generations reaped benefit of the wealth passed on to them, he said.
Praja Rajyam Party president K Chiranjeevi has totally ruled out the question of merging his 15-month-old outfit with the ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
The 77-year-old was recently diagnosed with pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital, where he died at 1.28 am, a Congress leader said.
Former Congress leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy has began a day-long fast at Jantar Mantar in Delhi in protest against the 'injustice' meted out to Andhra Pradesh in the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal verdict. The former Congress Member of Parliament from Kadapa, who had resigned from the party on November, arrived late on Monday night by a special train along with his supporters and farmers.Sources said the objective of the fast is to highlight farmers' plight.
'The central BJP leaders were determined to push Hindutva hard, and it failed.'
The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh suffered yet another blow with its Kakinada MLA Dwarampudi Chandrasekhar Reddy formally joining the YSR Congress on Thursday.
Amid speculation that Congress will neutralise the Jagan camp by accomodating some of his loyalists in the new Andhra Pradesh cabinet, the rebel Kadapa MP may find the going tough. For the 38-year-old son of former Chief Minister Y S R Reddy, who has been aspiring to become the CM, the increasing isolation may push him into breaking away from Congress and forming a new party, political analysts feel.
Describing Y S Rajasekhara Reddy as a 'dynamic' chief minister and human being, the Congress on Thursday said his demise was a 'tremendous loss' to the party, which will take very long to come to terms with it. Condoling Reddy's death, Left parties described him the 'popular' chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. "Reddy was the son of the soil and had special concern for the welfare of poor and other weaker sections of the society," the BJP said.
The humiliation for the Telugu Desam Party was such that it could cross the double digit in only five urban local bodies while other opposition parties Bharatiya Janata Party and Jana Sena Partymade little gains.
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
In the last five years, 480 candidates with declared cases related to hate speech have contested elections to state assemblies, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the ADR said.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Singh stressed on discipline and unity in the party.
Alamgir Alam had distanced himself from the activities of Lal while speaking to reporters after the ED raids, pointing out that he had earlier served with other ministers of the state government too.
Seeking to buy time, the Congress high command appears to be toying with the idea of having a deputy chief minister and Pradesh Congress Committee chief in Andhra Pradesh from Telangana region amid a growing clamour for a separate state
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Tuesday dared Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhar Rao to topple the state government.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday evening spurned the Congress offer on alliance for Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council polls.
Flaying the United Progressive Alliance government for its 'unilateral' decision on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, Telugu Desam Party President N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday said the Congress is not in a position to convince its members on the tumultuous issue of "equal justice" for people of Telangana as well as Seemandhra.
The talks between the ruling Congress party and the Praja Rajyam Party for a tie-up for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation on Monday suffered a major setback.
Gadikota Srikanth Reddy, Congress MLA from Kadapa in this interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, says that it is a wrong image that is being portrayed in the media that the Congress in AP is against Jagan.
Senior Congress leader from Andhra Pradesh, G Venkataswamy, who created a flutter by demanding Congress President Sonia Gandhi's resignation as party president, on Wednesday said he is ready to withdraw all his comments.
Though the terms of reference of the committee to look into the creation of a Telangana state may come in the next few days, the Congress is worried about the 'political' price it may have to pay for moving too fast on the statehood issue.
Take the case of Sudarshan Reddy, irrigation minister in the Andhra Pradesh government. He hails from the Bodan constituency in Nizamabad district and was supposed to return to his home constituency on Saturday. However, he advised against it due to the protests outside his house.
Modi told Times Now that the responsibility to take action in the raging matter lay with the state government as it was a law and order issue, according to the transcript of the interview provided by the broadcaster.
Rebel Congress leader and former Lok Sabha member from Kadapa YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Tuesday declared that the Andhra Pradesh government's days were numbered. Jagan's 48-hour hunger strike in Vijaywada for the calamity-stricken has received support from over a lakh people and 20 Congress legislators. He told his supporters that they should be ready for a longer battle to ensure justice to the farmers, weavers and other weaker sections of the state.
Cine actress and Telangana Rashtra Samithi MP M Vijaya Shanthi on Thursday joined Congress at a time when the possibility of TRS merging with Congress seemed to have hit a roadblock.
Renowned Telangana folk singer and balladeer Gaddar, who was popularly known for his revolutionary songs during the 1980s and later during the Telangana statehood agitation, passed away in Hyderabad on Sunday due to ill-health. He was 77.
